Ford Focus, model years 2013 to 2017. Filed by Ford Motor Company and reported to NHTSA on 28 September 2016. 64,038 vehicles potentially affected.
What the notice says Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain model year 2013-2017 Ford Focus hatchback vehicles manufactured February 14, 2012, to August 26, 2016 and equipped with a manual transmission. The hatchback of the affected vehicles may be unlatched with a single press of the interior latch release button. As such, these …
Is your vehicle included? Check with your VIN at NHTSA, or ask a dealer. This page is an independent copy of the notice, kept so you can see what changed after it was published. It is not the authority, and the authority’s own text is the one to act on.
Ford's own number for this recall: 16C13. That is the number on the owner letter and on the dealer paperwork. 16V698 is the number NHTSA gave the same campaign, and the number this page is filed under. They are one recall, written two ways.
What owners ask about this recall
- Which vehicles does recall 16V698 cover?
- Ford Focus, model years 2013-2017.
- What is wrong with them?
- Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain model year 2013-2017 Ford Focus hatchback vehicles manufactured February 14, 2012, to August 26, 2016 and equipped with a manual transmission.
- What can happen if it is not put right?
- With only a single press needed, the driver may accidently unlatch the hatchback, increasing the risk of injury to any unsecured passengers in the back.
- Is there a fix yet?
- Yes, and it is free. Ford will notify owners, and dealers will reprogram the Body Control Module with updated software, free of charge. The recall began February 10, 2017. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 16C13.
- What should I do now?
- Check your own vehicle by its VIN with NHTSA, which is the record to act on. Ford calls this recall 16C13, which is the number on the owner letter and the dealer paperwork.
Answered from the register this site holds. NHTSA is the record to act on.
What the authority says can happen if this is not fixed: “With only a single press needed, the driver may accidently unlatch the hatchback, increasing the risk of injury to any unsecured passengers in the back.”
affected
in the notice
caught
| Campaign | 16V698 |
|---|---|
| Filed by | Ford Motor Company |
| System at fault | Latches/Locks/Linkages:Hatchback/Liftgate:Lock |
| Reported to NHTSA | 28 September 2016 |
| Model years | 2013-2017 |
| Vehicles named | FORD FOCUS |
What the notice says today
The consequence
With only a single press needed, the driver may accidently unlatch the hatchback, increasing the risk of injury to any unsecured passengers in the back.
The remedy
Ford will notify owners, and dealers will reprogram the Body Control Module with updated software, free of charge. The recall began February 10, 2017. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 16C13.
What it said before
This campaign is in the register but not yet in the dated wording archive, so we cannot yet say whether its text has moved. It enters the archive on the next pass.
This is one of 237 notices in the record whose component field names latches/locks/linkages. Across that group the median wait before owners were written to was 49 days.
Last checked . No change has been recorded in the wording.
The same recall in other countries
This campaign carries a manufacturer code that also appears in another country’s register, which means the same defect was recalled there too.
- Canada: Transport Canada recall 2016475, recorded 27 September 2016 (within a week of the American filing)
Matched on 16C13, the manufacturer’s own number for this campaign, which is the only field the registers share. Exact match, nothing paired on brand and date. The two dates are adjacent instruments rather than the same one, so a difference of a day or two means nothing.
How often the two countries file on the same day · The European alerts
The models named here, across their whole recall history
How to cite this record
Quoting the wording on this page means quoting a version, so the date belongs in the citation:
CarsMultiverse, recall 16V698, wording as read on 16 September 2026. https://carsmultiverse.com/recall/16v698/
The cross-border matches used on this site are deposited as a citable dataset: doi:10.5281/zenodo.22087136. The recall wording itself is published by the national authority named above and is theirs, not ours.
The recall record and its wording are published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and are US Government public domain. The dated archive, the comparison and any before-and-after above are CarsMultiverse. How fresh every engine behind this page is, is public on the status page. To check a specific vehicle, use NHTSA’s own VIN lookup.
Other Ford notices we hold
- 26V579: 2026-2027 Transit
- 26V578: 2023-2027 F-150
- 26V577: 2026 F-150
- 26V576: 2026 F-150
- 26V550: 2026 Maverick, F-150, and Bronco Sport
- 26V548: 2026 Explorer, Bronco, Bronco Sport, Mustang, and Ranger
- 26V547: 2024-2026 Mustang
- 26V532: 2026 Explorer
All 776 Ford campaigns we hold · Every manufacturer in the record
The fingerprint of this notice
We take a SHA-256 of each of the three blocks of text the authority publishes and keep the first eight characters. As we last read campaign 16V698 on 23 August 2026, they were:
- Defect summary
01db2c87 - Consequence
84e06fcc - Remedy
08a08349
We first read this notice on 21 August 2026. It has not moved since. If it ever does, these characters will not match, and the change will be dated here.
The wording we hold for 16V698 · how the whole register is watched
This notice names one vehicle among several registers that have written about it. Every notice this site holds for the Ford Focus, in all seven, is kept on that vehicle's own page, with the newest in each.
Put this notice on your site
A small badge that links here and names the register's reference. It costs one line of HTML and needs no key.
The badge is free to use. It links to this page and nowhere else, and it never shows advertising.
Owners of these cars
No register publishes what happens after the letter. Owners do: tell us, in two taps.
Anonymous: no account, no cookie, nothing you type is stored beyond these choices. Figures appear once 3 owners have answered, and are published with the record under CC BY 4.0.